Page:Harold Lamb--The House of the Falcon.djvu/42

 A spattering of drops that was almost a spray ran along the porch, and Rawul Singh led them inside, lighting lamps that trembled in the air currents.

"Is this the house of Major Fraser-Carnie?" Edith asked Rawul Singh quickly, drawing away from Monsey, and arranging her disordered hat. "Aren't we going to a hotel?"

The orderly glanced at her curiously, and Monsey replied. The major was detained at the cantonment, settling some affairs of the natives. Fraser-Carnie had arranged to take up his quarters at the Residency, and they were to have full possession of the bungalow—Fraser-Carnie's bungalow. There was no good hotel, he explained.

Monsey turned to go and in so doing spoke to Edith.

"You have not forgotten your promise?"

She shook her head and watched him depart, somewhat surprised that he should go during the storm and without waiting for the arrival of the major.

The shower had passed over Srinagar; the level sunlight shone on a freshened vista of poplars and the water-stained wooden bungalows of the European colony when Fraser-Carnie appeared to pay his respects.

Major Alfred Fraser-Carnie was ruddy and gray-haired. He was good-natured, in a heavy kind of way, and not talkative until aroused to the proper point. Well past middle age, he still made a presentable figure on a horse.

Moreover, he did not shun an occasional sally into the polo fields of the northern stations to keep himself fit. A surgeon, attached to a cavalry regiment, he had labored conscientiously at his profession, a labor increased by his own hobby—gathering material on the tribal customs and environment of Central Asia.